Gilgit

Gilgit lies in a broad valley near the meeting of the Gilgit and Hunza rivers. Once an important stopping place on the routes between South and Central Asia, it was a centre of Buddhist learning under rulers known in Chinese records as Lesser Bolü. Manuscripts and inscriptions preserve traces of that religious world, while mountain passes connect the valley with neighbouring lands.

Tradition tells that Azur Jamshid overthrew the cruel ruler Shri Badat and founded the line later known as the Trakhan dynasty. Raja Torra Khan ruled in the fifteenth century, and his relatives established a separate line in Chitral. In the seventeenth century Queen Dadi Jawari was remembered for building canals that brought irrigation and water to the valley. The Trakhan line endured until the death of Raja Abbas around 1810.